Gaddafi loyalist accused of plotting to assassinate Libyan rebel leader

Student based in Italy ‘planned spectacular attack on Libyan embassy in Rome’ A Libyan student leader loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been arrested in Italy, accused of planning to assassinate the Libyan rebels’ leading international representative and lead an attack on Libya’s embassy in Rome. Court documents released after the arrests of three men identified the intended victim of the plot as Abdel Rahman Shalgam, a former foreign minister who headed the Transitional National Council’s delegation to this week’s meeting of the Libyan contact group in Abu Dhabi. Shalgam, who was Gaddafi’s foreign minister from 2000 until 2009 and subsequently his ambassador to the UN, defected to the rebels on 25 February. The alleged mastermind of the plot to kill him is Nuri Ahusain, the head of the Libyan students’ union in Italy, who was arrested at his home in Perugia by anti-terrorist police on Thursday. Two other Libyans, aged 21 and 33, were detained in an earlier raid. The investigation is still in progress, and about 10 other people are understood to be suspects. Some details remain unclear, but the warrant for Ahusain’s arrest, issued by a judge in Perugia, said the student leader had made clear his “murderous intentions” towards Shalgam in a phone conversation on 29 May, unaware that police were listening in. He allegedly repeated his plan to kill the diplomat in another phone call the following day. The content of this second call indicated that the order for an attack on the Libyan embassy in Rome had come from Tripoli. Shalgam had arrived in the Italian capital a few days earlier. On 30 May, he appeared at a press conference at the embassy alongside eight Libyan army officers who announced their defection and said they were part of a group of up to 120 members of the military who had defected. The ambassador in Rome has also abandoned Gaddafi, and his embassy now flies the rebels’ red, black and green flag. Italian police followed Ahusain and two other men when they travelled to Rome on a suspected reconnaissance mission. The warrant for Ahusain said the plan foiled by police involved “storming the building in Rome that houses the current transitional Libyan government in Benghazi with the aim of driving out the present diplomatic representative”. Police said the attack was to have been carried out by Libyan students loyal to the regime, together with Algerian mercenaries recruited in Naples. Libya Middle East Muammar Gaddafi Italy Europe Arab and Middle East unrest John Hooper guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 10, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.